The Truth about New York, New York

Frank Sinatra probably would have made it here a lot quicker had he had just one other thing, an Australian accent.

If I was a little stronger minded I probably wouldn't have let this city seduce me as easily as it did but like Kerouac, I chase from one falling star to the next and have nothing to offer anyone but my own confusion.

Also, I'm delighted to find out that all of my stupid charm and quirks work on a Americans and I even make friends on the subway. I honestly haven't experienced anything like this place before.

How I feel about New York scares me because in the two and a bit weeks I've been there, I've been given the luxury of something I haven't had in a while. A routine and friends for longer then 24 hours.

I wake up, generally around noon, walk to Sparrow Cafe' on the corner, flirt hopelessly with the barrister. Eat a bagel with Scallion Cream Cheese (I'm not sure what Scallion is and frankly, I don't care because it's amazing).

Then something touristy.
Like the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) so I can stare at Monet's work;

take a nap in Central Park;

catch a broadway show;

or hang out with these assholes and catch a comedy show;

I also know most peoples regulars names at my all time favourite bar where I have fantastic friends that rarely have me home sober and before 6am. It's same bar that my brother and his friends spent every night drinking back in the Summer of 2010.

I often abuse my Australian accent so I don't actually have to pay for things, which is also how I ended up seducing these NBC pages;

doing body shots in Philadelphia, scoring free $20 cocktails at a swanky underground New York bar and getting free sandwiches from a deli. 

I know.
I know.
I'm awesome.

It's dangerous spending too much time in a place like this because it makes you think of what your life would be like if I lived here.

So when Mike says things to me like, "If you need a place to stay? You can rent the room above the bar."

Or when Stephanie finishes laughing and says, "We'd be super best friends ever if you lived here!" and hastily agrees when I tell her she should marry me just so I can get a Green Card.

Or when Louis tells me that if I come back in the Summer, I could stay with him.

My imagination goes wild and I know that New York deserves so much more of my time. The fact that I'm not there now makes me sad. I think that maybe the possibility of me living here isn't that silly and it's not just some dream I conjured up when I was 13 anymore.

Plus, I didn't even decide on which Girls character I was and despite my greatest efforts of stalking Rockefeller Center I did not get to meet/marry Tina Fey.

Do you know how terrifying it is that I've travelled some 30,000kms but I've gone ahead and let myself indulge in a place so much that I can picture my entire life here. I had a similar experience with Sweden but both lives were so different and both places appealed to different sides of my personality.

My friend refers to the part of me that belongs in New York as 'the character Tara'. Which is understandable because my life is outlandish sometimes I don't even think I'm a real person.

It was a very, very hard place to leave. I'm currently working out how to get my ass back there but it's scary... I don't know if I'll have the strength to leave it again this time around.

So the truth about New York...?
The $1 street cart hotdogs really don't make you sick. Stop being a pussy and just go try one.